Suzhou Yiben Hall

Suzhou Yiben Hall

Yiben Hall, located at No. 21 Wenwufang in Zhenze Town, Wujiang District, Suzhou City, faces south and features a structure spanning three bays in width and four sections in depth, with a total floor area of 214 square meters. The residence is fronted by a gated wall entrance with a relatively low stone door frame—only 1.83 meters high and 1.13 meters wide—and a small 2-meter-deep courtyard.

The first gated wall room has four wooden doors, with the upper parts decorated with lattice designs in the shapes of the characters “Fu (福, fortune), Lu (禄, prosperity), Fu (富, wealth), and Gui (贵, nobility).” The eaves of the gated wall room are only as high as one person's reach. The second to fourth sections are two-story buildings. The second section includes a small flagstone-paved courtyard and a brick-carved gate tower, with the lintel inscribed in clerical script with the four characters “天锡纯嘏” (Bestowed with Pure Blessing). The third section originally had a brick-carved gate tower, which was demolished in the 1960s. The front hall features a flagstone courtyard, and the lower part of the main hall room has a plaster ceiling with a Western touch. The six full-height lattice windows on the lower section were originally adorned with wooden lattice designs paired with mother-of-pearl inlays, but these have now been replaced with glass. The lower panel sections are carved with floral and auspicious patterns representing the four seasons: “Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.” The fourth section also has a flagstone courtyard, and the six full-height lattice windows are carved with floral and auspicious motifs.

Yiben Hall was built in the early Qing Dynasty. Shi Caishi, the 73rd-generation ancestor of the Shi family from Lize, settled in Zhenze in the seventh year of the Shunzhi reign during the Qing Dynasty (1650). The Shi family was a prominent clan in Zhenze. Notable figures born here include Shi Zejing, the founder of the Chinese Red Cross, and the “Three Shi Brothers”—Shi Zhaozeng, Shi Zhaoji, and Shi Zhaoxiang.

In 2009, Yiben Hall was designated by the municipal government as a cultural relic protection unit in the fifth batch of Wujiang City. In 2012, due to administrative division adjustments, it was reclassified as a cultural relic protection unit of Suzhou City.